For the love of goat -- WITH VIDEOS

Jenny Brown acknowledges that the novelty of a one legged Woodstock woman standing up for a three legged goat draws attention - and donors.

When the New York Times told her story on the front page of its metro section last month, the response almost overwhelmed Brown, in a good way.

The path the goat took to come under Brown's care is a matter of speculation. Albie, the now-famous goat, was probably en route to a New York City slaughterhouse before he somehow escaped. When found in a Brooklyn park last August, the goat was wounded badly in one leg - likely from straps meant to immobilize him. Soon after, he wound up with Brown's Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, where she gave him the best care they could manage.

Still, the goat lost his left fore-leg months later.

Brown's empathy for Albie is strong, partly because cancer led to the amputation of her own right leg when she was 10 years old. Brown wears her own prosthetic leg most of her waking hours, walking with only a slight limp. So after Albie's leg was amputated, the idea of fitting him with a prosthetic made sense to her.

Dogs and some other animals may be able to survive well minus a leg, but Brown said the wear and tear on a hoofed animal such as Albie would mount too quickly. The remaining front leg probably won't be able to take the strain much longer.

As Brown spoke, Albie was eating grass a few feet away, down on one knee and his stump.

For the last few months, Brown and Albie have been working with Erik Tompkins - the same prosthetist who fitted Brown's right leg with its current below-the-knee prosthetic.

Tompkins, who mostly works out of an office in Kingston on human patients, molded a new lower leg for Albie this week.

"The technology that we're using is pretty simple," Tompkins said. "It's known as an endo-flex prosthesis."

Brown pointed out that an added challenge, with Albie, is all his fur, which makes redness and soreness more difficult to detect.

And the fact that goats can't talk doesn't help.

Already, some $5,000 has been spent on the amputation surgeries for Albie, and it is uncertain how much more his veterinary bills will cost during his lifetime. Tompkins is donating his services.

For critics who argue that those dollars might be better used for human-to-human kindness, Brown said these dollars weren't gathered at the expense of any other agencies. A marathoner used a pledge drive to raise $11,000 to go toward Albie's expenses and the donations triggered by the attention the latest New York Times article have dwarfed that.

That wave of support has already exceeded $60,000, she said, and a session with a CBS Morning Show crew is in the works that could add to the tally. Right now, the donations are going toward a new veterinary building with radiant floor heating in the heart of the shelter property.

For Brown, it has been important to use some of the attention she's garnered from Albie's story - and her own - to promote her vegan beliefs. Like many of the volunteers who work at the shelter, Brown doesn't eat meat or eggs or dairy products and she said part of the mission of the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary is to convince others to do the same.

Or at least cut back.

"Incremental change is good," she said. "We have so many issues today in terms of world hunger and how there's a food shortage, and when you consider that it takes 30 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef and that 30 pounds of grain could feed six people a day's ration of food."

Without the education component, the shelter would have relatively little impact on what Brown sees as the larger problem, large-scale factory farms that she said raise animals in misery.

While she tries to avoid "gloom and doom" while explaining what factory farm animals go through, she said she believes Americans should know the part they play in the cycle of meat and dairy production.

Even children.

"Of course we temper the message, but you have to step back and look at telling kids the truth," she said. "We're not just a rescue and rehab and sanctuary for some pretty lucky critters who have found their way here."

Even among the socially conscious, Brown has found a lot of ignorance.

The same people who refuse to eat veal because of what veal calves go through before slaughter may not realize that by drinking milk or eating dairy products they are supporting the cycle that produces veal. Dairy cows must have offspring annually or they won't produce milk, she said, and male calves are almost always slaughtered soon afterwards and served as veal, she said.

Brown pointed out several steers on her property that were veal calves rescued before slaughter. Their names are Ralphie, Andy, Elvis and Dylan.

Tompkins said the time he has spent with Brown has opened his eyes to some aspects of the impact of factory farming on our world.

And for her part, Brown said talking with Tompkins has sharpened her interest in the rights of humans who use prosthetics. His work lobbying for prosthetic equity - trying to require insurance companies pay for their fair share of care for those who use mechanical limbs - could someday help Brown with her own medical coverage.

If her coverage lasts.

A one-time television producer, Brown has been relying on the health insurance brought home by her film editor husband, Doug Abel, co-founder of the sanctuary. The time Abel spent working on "30 Rock" kept them in health insurance for awhile, she said, but it is running out. "He worked enough hours on that job for me to get a leg."

The human-animal prosthetic story could come full circle in Tompkins' regular practice, Tompkins said. As Americans with inadequate health insurance - or no insurance at all - beg for prosthetics, they may have to accept more-basic mechanical legs like the one being developed for Albie.

Tompkins said he first learned how to make this style of endo-flex prosthesis as part of a project he worked on a few years ago helping teach technicians from third world countries to make cheap, effective prosthetics. While they function, they aren't as good as the more technical prosthetic legs most westerners use.

Usually.

"In the future we may have to use some of this technology for some of our lesser-insured patients," Tompkins said.

Brown said she will continue to air her views on factory farming, and she doesn't mind showing some prosthetic leg if that will help. Keeping the sanctuary in the minds of the community is a good thing.

Since few of the volunteers with her group eat eggs, the eggs her chickens produce go to neighbors she wants "to suck up to."

The community also absorbs some of the animals the shelter has rescued.

"We adopt animals out to loving homes that promise to never eat them or exploit them or breed them, because there are so many animals that are being seized," she said, counting off issues of neglect and cruelty.

The no-breeding rule is important to her.

While she tries to ensure comfortable lives for the 130 rescued cows, goats, sheep, pigs, turkeys and chickens at the sanctuary, she won't allow them to have offspring, she said. "We do not allow reproduction here, that would be irresponsible of us. To bring more lives into the world when there are already so many we can't even help, right now."

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary

WHEN: Visiting hours at the sanctuary are from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. April through October.

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WHERE: The organization is located in Willow, 8 miles west of downtown Woodstock on Route 212 on Van Wagner Road.

DETAILS: The next event is the June Jamboree 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 14.